Sunday, July 31, 2011

My heart is just breaking for a sweet friend of mine, B. She lost her baby boy at 38 weeks yesterday, due to (they think) the umbilical wrapping around the baby. I cannot imagine loosing a baby at any point (and I know that many of my friends have- I pray for them too), but to loose him at 38 weeks! I just think about her having to go back home without her baby, having to see his room and his clothes and his sweet diapers. My heart literally aches for them.

Please be in prayer for my friend, her husband S, and their other son E. This is a difficult and painful road for them, and I pray that the LORD would wrap His arms tightly around them, give them breath when they feel like they can't breathe any longer, and make His presence known to them in the days ahead. They love the Lord and I know they have a long journey ahead, but I also know that their faith and their trust in Jesus will carry them.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

When we bought our home- just over a month ago (seriously, the first mortgage check cleared this morning!)- we knew we needed to replace the carpet ASAP. And we also knew that we didn't want our new carpet to get dirty which it would fast if it went right up to the back door like the old carpet did. SO, we decided to make a tiled area in front of the back door. But that would mean two tiles in the living room. WELL, y'all pretty people know I couldn't have that. Not in my house...it would drive me crazy!! So the fireplace became one of my famous (or infamous) "while we are at it" projects. I think that is how 99% of our last home's updates got done! HA!

Before, both the hearth and the face were a green granite. Not my taste, but I was willing to live with it. But when we decided to do the tile at the back door, I knew it was the perfect opportunity!

Here is the only before picture I have. Sorry!!! I am so bad at taking before pictures! You can't see it well, but the doors were also trimmed in brass! GAG! But don't worry, I took care of that with a little paint, just like I did at our last house! No need for new doors when you have a couple of bucks worth of black paint!!! ;) I will post on that later... moving on....

We decided to use a ceramic tile for the hearth (which is flat so it made it SO much easier) and a glass and stone mosaic for the face. The mosaic tiles were in different lengths and had a lot of character, but I still wanted to do something a little unexpected. So I decided to lay them on the vertical. My dad and husband were both skeptical of this idea. But when they saw it complete, I think they both came around and said they liked it. Probably because they never want to do it again! HA!

We mounted the TV above the fireplace since it wouldn't fit in the built-in that was meant for the TV. The house is circa 1997, and flat screens were still not around then. At least not as we know them now. So the built-ins are designed for a tube TV. As you can see below, we use that space for toy basket storage!!!

The other side is our components. My brother-in-law and dad ran the cables for us, since Cole was at work and couldn't do it. I have gotten lots of FB questions about how we did that, so I will try to do a whole post on that process. We already had a plug in on the fireplace mantle (for lamps I guess?) so we didn't have to run electrical, just HDMI. That was a huge time and money saver.

Here is the component side closed up. I am still rearranging the shelves. They have been a fun challenge for me! I can't wait to decorate them for the holidays!!! I love being able to display all of our pictures!!!

Here is the other side of the built-ins....(where to toy basket is)

The vases with the "fru-fru stick thingys" was all Cole's idea. He wanted something to mask the mounting brackets (it is a tilt bracket so it sticks out some and you can see it from the sides) and this was his solution. I went to HobLob and made it happen. :) Overall, I am super pleased with how it turned out!!!

Sorry for the laundry and toy baskets there. And the puffs on the coffee table. Real life is so glamorous!!! ;)

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Okay y'all...we all know it is hotter than hades outside!!! But it is also pretty warm in Ava's room. And only in Ava's room. Poor girl. It's not like sweltering or anything. But she is already hot natured and I have been dressing her in shorts and t-shirts for sleep times, plus running her fan nonstop. My dad was in our attic the other day and mentioned that the attic was hot, but not nearly hot enough for the time of year. That combined with the fact that our AC is running all.the.time right now makes me think that we might have a duct leak. Something that was not mentioned in the inspection report, so I am hoping that our home warranty covers it. I read the book they gave us, but I might as well have been reading it in Spanish. I understood about every other word. Ugh.

So the AC people are coming tomorrow, and so is UVerse. AGAIN. Ever since our service was installed on the 12th, the signal has been coming and going. To EVERYTHING! Phone, internet and TV. Needless to say, I am tired of it. I don't get to watch much TV, but when I do, dang it I want to watch!!! Especially if I am paying almost 200.00 a month to watch sed TV or use sed Internet!

I am hosting a baby shower on Sunday afternoon for a dear friend of mine, Audrey. Our other dear friend Jenny and Aud's sister Amy are helping host, and I am so thankful for them! It would really be hard without their help!!! I have never hosted a shower or party with someone before, and wasn't sure how it would go since I am kinda a control freak about parties... HA! But it is going great! I just need to get my house clean and the bathroom paint touched up and the decor for the shower finished. I think it is going to be really cute, and I will do a whole post on it soon! Promise!

Sorry no house pictures in this post. Just been too busy. But to make up for it, here is a tip! My sister turned me onto an iPhone app called houzz. It is just an app that has tons and tons of house pictures from designers all over the country!!! It is AWESOME!!!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Well we are moved in. Settled, I WISH! HA! But we are getting there. With Cole's crazy work schedule right now, it is a bit hard. But I am chipping away at it while he is off paying for it! ;)

So now to the good stuff...PICTURES...

We got the TV up and the shelves decorated. I am sure I will change them over the years, but this is what they are now. I can't wait for Christmas so I can decorate them! SO fun!!!

If you remember the green granite that was? Yeah, it is gone. :) We got new carpet, and we wanted a small tiled area in front of the backdoor to keep the dirt off the carpet. But I didn't want two tiles in the same room, so we re tiled the hearth in the same tile we used for the back door area, and used a long glass tile/travertine mosaic laid on the vertical for the fireplace face. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way it turned out!!! Excuse the pink step stool. And the cabinet door I can't close until we get the cables ran behind the door. Ahhh, moving. ;)

Here is for those of you who can't remember or never saw the before picture of the fireplace...MUCH better now huh?!

Now on to the kitchen. The wallpaper is just a distant nightmare!!!

Yes, the green countertops remain still. :( But I have been looking at granite. I am just not 100% sold on what I want, and I would like for our poor bank account to recover from the moving expenses a bit before we off and spend 3k or more on countertops! But it will happen soon. I have faith. ;)

By no means do I like or want to keep the green. But it doesn't look AS awful without the horrid wallpaper.

I fell in love with these pictures at HobLob (50% off too! SCORE) They are french country and just perfect!!!

Sorry I didn't clear my table. I will take a shot of the eating area when it is clean, promise. But I hung my old window I have had forever!! LOVE IT!

What do you think of the curtains? I saw this on a blog for ideas about french country window treatments, and I really love it!!! It looks really good with my french country farmish table and chairs. Craigslist, $225, and didn't even have to leave our town!!!

Here is the cross wall I JUST completed in the living room. I decided to put it on this wall because it is an awkward space with no real direction, and there isn't any furniture that lives there. I am glad I did. I think pictures would have just been wrong there. And I get to display my crosses without them being too much. It looks better in person...for some reason the scale looks odd in the picture. Huh? Probably the photographer. I hear she is horrible. We are probably just lucky there isn't a finger in the picture or something. ;)

Now to the fun room- the room I did very first thing! AVA's ROOM!!!

See her chillin' in her chair!? She loves her room!!! It is so big! So much room to play!!!

Other side of her room.

This was before I hung ANY art up in here (butterflies excepted) so I promise to take "final" pics and share. When it is final. Which it still isn't. I don't think.

Book nook.

Loving her new pillow. And room.

Her closet. LUCKY KID!!!! It is huge!!!

Hope you enjoyed the little tour. Promise to do a proper one one of these days!!!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

I have SO much to catch up on! But for now, I would just like to say that we are HOME in the new house and loving it! And that I still have mass amounts of unpacking to do but will post before and after pics of the rooms as soon as I get a chance to put the rooms together! HA!!!